WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three women who were forced into sexual servitude by Japan in World War Two on Thursday told the U.S. Congress harrowing tales of abuse and said they rejected Japanese official apologies as an insult.

The now elderly "comfort women" -- a Japanese euphemism for the estimated 200,000 mostly Asian women forced to provide sex for Japan's soldiers -- testified in a debate on a House of Representatives resolution calling on Japan to apologize for that practice.

The women, two South Koreans and a Dutch-born Australian, said Tokyo's efforts to atone for their ordeal were insufficient because official apologies were not accompanied by offers of government compensation.

"A real apology to me is one that is followed by action," Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, who was snatched by Japanese officers from a sugar plantation in 1942 in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony where here family had lived for three generations.

She told the Asia-Pacific subcommittee of the HouseCommittee on Foreign Affairs that she lost her virginity to a sword-wielding Japanese officer, the first rape in a three-year nightmare that led to miscarriages later in life.

"Even the Japanese doctor raped me each time he examined me for venereal disease," O'Herne said.

The devout Catholic woman said she had forgiven the Japanese but rejected a payment from Tokyo's Asian Women's Fund in 1995 as "an insult to comfort women" because the money was from private donations -- a formula that she felt skirted Japanese state responsibility.

"I will only take money if it comes from the government," O'Herne told the hearing.

CRITICIZING A U.S. ALLY

Japan in 1993 acknowledged a state role in the wartime brothel program and later issued apologies and set up the Asian Women's Fund. About 285 of the women who accepted payments of about $20,000 from that fund received personal apologies from Japan's prime minister.

A Japanese official in Washington said Tokyo was monitoring the debate since Rep. Michael Honda, a California Democrat, introduced the nonbinding resolution on February 1, but did not wish "to make this a big public issue" in U.S.-Japan ties.

Lee Yong-soo and Kim Koon-ja told similar tales of abduction from villages in Korea and deployment to military brothels, followed by ostracism and hardship after the war.

"If you don't officially apologize or make compensation, then give me back my youth," said Kim, 81, repeating statements she made to the Japanese parliament more than a decade ago.

Honda urged the committee to move urgently to pass his measure because "these women are aging and their numbers dwindling with each passing day."

Honda, one of a handful of U.S. lawmakers of Japanese descent, said he was alarmed at efforts by some conservatives in Japan to withdraw or revise the government's earlier admission of a state role in the brothel system.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, criticized the resolution, saying "Japan has already apologized many, many times." Japan today was a U.S. ally and a "major force for decency and humane standards", he added in comments that drew angry condemnation from Korean witness Lee.

World War II sex slaves press U.S. Congress to support resolution seeking Japanese apology
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 15, 2007
WASHINGTON

Even after more than 60 years, the defiance remained as Jan Ruff O'Herne described her refusal to submit to the Japanese soldiers who repeatedly raped her as a young woman in Indonesia.

She told U.S. lawmakers how she shaved her head to make herself unattractive. How she hid, one time even in a tree. How she huddled together and prayed with other captive "comfort women" — a euphemism for the up to 200,000 women who historians say were forced to have sex with millions of Japanese soldiers during the war. How she punched and kicked and screamed, even though it invariably meant she would be beaten worse.

"Never did any Japanese rape me without a fight. I fought each one of them," she said Thursday, testifying at a House of Representatives hearing of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, in which O'Herne and two other former comfort women pleaded with U.S. lawmakers to adopt a resolution urging Japan to apologize formally.

The memories of being raped and beaten day and night, even by the doctor who examined her for venereal disease, "have tortured my mind all my life," said O'Herne, a former Dutch colonist born in Java who now lives in Australia. "I have forgiven the Japanese for what they did to me, but I can never forget."

O'Herne and two South Korean victims appeared in support of a nonbinding resolution that urges Japan to "formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for the women's ordeal.

Often through tears, the three women spoke Thursday of their anger, shame and defiance, and of the physical and mental scars that remain.

"I am so embarrassed. I am so ashamed," said Lee Yong-soo, speaking through an interpreter of her rape and torture. "But this is something I cannot just keep to myself."

The resolution does not recommend that Japan pay reparations. Besides an official apology, it demands that Japan reject those who say the sexual enslavement never happened and to educate children about the comfort women's experience. It was unclear when the House panel would meet again to consider whether to endorse the resolution.

Supporters of the resolution want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by the Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Japan objects to the resolution, which has led to unease in an otherwise strong U.S.-Japanese relationship. Its leaders have apologized repeatedly. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, for instance, said in 2001 that he felt sincere remorse for the comfort women's "immeasurable and painful experiences."

In a letter sent to the congressional panel, Japan's ambassador to the United States, Ryozo Kato, said his country has recognized its responsibility and acknowledged its actions. "While not forgetting the past, we wish to move forward," Kato wrote.

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said that Japan has done exactly what the resolution demands: officially apologized. "The issue of an apology has been fully and satisfactorily addressed," he said, adding that Japanese citizens living now should not be punished for what earlier generations did.

The State Department expressed sympathy Thursday for the victims, but said in a statement that Japan had taken steps to deal with the issue, referring to the apologetic comments made by Koizumi and other prime ministers.

A sponsor of the resolution, Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, acknowledged that many believe it focuses on the past to the detriment of the crucial U.S. alliance with Japan. But he called such worries unfounded.

"Reconciliation on this issue will have a positive effect upon relationships in the region as historical anxieties are put to rest," said Honda, a Japanese-American who as a child was interned in a wartime U.S. camp.

Japan acknowledged in the 1990s that its military set up and ran brothels for its troops. But it has rejected most compensation claims, saying they were settled by postwar treaties.

The Asian Women's Fund, created in 1995 by the Japanese government but independently run and funded by private donations, has provided a way for Japan to compensate former sex slaves without offering official government compensation. Many comfort women have rejected the fund.

Witness Lee told the lawmakers, "I will not leave the Japanese government alone until they get down on their knees in front of me and give me a sincere apology."